God's kingdom! Forget my tears,
forget my prayers, and all that I have done!"

"I do not understand thee!" said Death. "Wilt thou have thy child
again, or shall I go with it there, where thou dost not know!"

Then the mother wrung her hands, fell on her knees, and prayed to our
Lord: "Oh, hear me not when I pray against Thy will, which is the
best! hear me not! hear me not!"

And she bowed her head down in her lap, and Death took her child and
went with it into the unknown land.

[Illustration: "THE STORY OF A MOTHER."]

------------

THE FALSE COLLAR.

There was once a fine gentleman, all of whose moveables were a
bootjack and a hair-comb: but he had the finest false collars in the
world; and it is about one of these collars that we are now to hear a
story.

It was so old, that it began to think of marriage; and it happened
that it came to be washed in company with a garter.

"Nay!" said the collar, "I never did see anything so slender and so
fine, so soft and so neat. May I not ask your name?"

"That I shall not tell you!" said the garter.

"Where do you live?" asked the collar.

But the garter was so bashful, so modest, and thought it was a strange
question to answer.

"You are certainly a girdle," said the collar; "that is to say an
inside girdle. I see well that you are both for use and ornament, my
dear young lady."

"I will thank you not to speak to me," said the garter. "I think I
have not given the least occasion for it."

"Yes! when one is as handsome as you," said the collar, "that is
occasion enough."

"Don't come so near me, I beg of you!" said the garter. "You look so
much like those men-folks."

"I am also a fine gentleman," said the collar. "I have a boot-jack and
a hair-comb."

But that was not true, for it was his master who had them: but he
boasted.

"Don't come so near me," said the garter: "I am not accustomed to it."

"Prude!" exclaimed the collar; and then it was taken out of the
washing-tub. It was starched, hung over the back of a chair in the
sunshine, and was then laid on the ironing-blanket; then came the warm
box-iron. "Dear lady!" said the collar. "Dear widow-lady! I feel quite
hot. I am quite changed. I begin to unfold myself. You will burn a
hole in me. Oh! I offer you my hand."

"Rag!" said the box-iron; and went proudly over the collar: for she
fancied she was a steam-engine, that would go on the railroad and draw
the waggons. "Rag!" said the box-ir